


that which is best in me

by mortalitasi



Series: ad lucem [7]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, F/M, Family, Gen, General, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 16:43:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3141503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mortalitasi/pseuds/mortalitasi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heroes don't often have a say in whatever it is they do - most of them are volunteered. But sometimes, just sometimes... we can choose what to fight for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	that which is best in me

**Author's Note:**

> i started this months and months before Inquisition was even on the horizon, and opening the document & looking back at the introductory passages made me laugh. who could have known my predictions would have come true? and now here it is. finished piece. i hope you enjoy!!

_Papa. Father. It’s been so long that I don’t know which of the two to call you._

_Hearing you again was—I don’t know what to call it. Comforting, perhaps, while it lasted, but when it was done, all I had was—there was nothing left. After someone dies, you begin to accept the realities of what it means for you. No more talking. No more touch. I still think about Mother, live in fear of forgetting her voice, or being unable to recall her face. There have been so many times that I wish you were here, that she were here—sometimes I feel that I can’t—_

_I want to be a person you would be proud of leaving behind. I want to be… I want to talk to you. I knew it was you when the enchantments fell. Your magic is—was always sensible. Ordered. Like you taught me. Purpose first, compulsion later. You were present, if only for a moment. Speaking, next to me, like you’d never been gone. I have questions, questions I was too young to think of when you passed. Questions about us, Kirkwall. You and mother. Carver. Bethany. What it was you truly wanted for us. Have I been right, in all that I’ve done for them? All that I haven’t?_

_Every one of you died expecting something of me. I should have saved Bethany. I should have saved Mother. I’m never late, but I never seem to get anywhere in time, either. I delay, and the city burns around me. I stopped running, and it cost me everything. I know now why you chose to hide in Lothering. I couldn’t have—wouldn’t have decided the same, but I know. Sometimes I dream I’m in the house, and that the window to the garden is open. I’m alone—and everything, every movement, is suspended. Perfect. Still. It’s morning. I can see the motes drifting in the sunlight. I’m alone. There is no one outside. I feel at home._

_I—I always—I don’t—I can’t—I haven’t—_

_Mother told me to write, every day. I don’t know why I’m humoring her, even now. I’m no poet, no bard. No one will ever read this, and yet I can’t admit to the things I’m supposed to be writing_ about _. Who lies to their journal?_

_I start too many sentences with the word ‘I.’ Perhaps that’s my problem. Carver seems to think so. What can I do to--? I… miss the years when he and Bethany were children and I could sit one on each knee. When they could ride on Dane’s back without their feet brushing the floor. Creeping through that old prison only—I only realized how much of a distance there is between us. When did little bright-eyed Carver become so bitter? Has he always hated me this much?_

_My head is beginning to hurt. And my ink is running out. That may be a good thing. I threw a dagger at Larius’ back. He disappeared, like smoke blown away by the wind. I knew something was wrong with him. It saddens me to think Larius is no more. Maybe it was a mercy, in the end, but it is Corypheus we will have to contend with in the future. I should have guessed that nothing I kill stays dead for too long. A curse of mine._

_I am sorry; for not being able to uphold your work, or your legacy, or our promise._

_The next time I cross paths with Corypheus, I will finish what you started—and then, possibly, I can make my peace._

 

 

…

 

 

She hasn’t even finished fully marking out the period to that last sentence before she tears the page out of her journal, stands, crumples the paper between her hands, and tosses it into the awaiting fireplace. It all but bursts into flames, turns to embers near immediately. She watches as the particles disperse, falling like rain on the burning logs. Her fists tighten. A knuckle pops.

Dane shuffles up to her, paws padding on the stone floor, and nuzzles his snout into her tense hand. She opens her palm to receive him and rests it on his great head, scratching at the space between his ears and smiling if only just a little at the happy pant that gets her. He pulls away and licks at the back of her knuckles as if to say, “Let’s go,” and she shakes her head at his persistence.

“You always know how to make me feel better,” she murmurs, running her hand down the mabari’s smooth back.

Even at twelve years, Dane is a marvel of lean muscle and coiled sinew. His shoulders are at level with her hips, the tips of his ears with the first curve of her breast. He is just as terrifying as he has always been—or, he is to everyone else. Aisling can still only see the pup in him, the tiny, milk-toothed disaster that Malcolm had given her on her seventeenth birthday.

He’d weighed a stone and a half already at only four weeks, but had no idea how to use any of it, and the house had suffered as a direct result. Leandra had hated them all for the first six months of it, though Dane had eventually wormed his way into her good graces. He _was_ a mabari, after all, and Aisling suspects that if her father had chosen any other breed, Leandra would have had the pup thrown out—Malcolm had known that, of course.

And so long after it all, Aisling can’t guess at how Malcolm even came by a mabari. She’d never believed his story about the dog being a present when she was younger, but she’s half-inclined to doing that now. People will do odd things to thank you for saving their lives, and if what her father had said about saving a Chasind kennelmaster was true, then—case closed, she supposes. They’d argued, the three of them, over what to name the pup. Bethany had been the only one to announce her option from the very beginning.

“Moira!” she’d said, wringing her small chubby hands. “After th’Queen!”

Malcolm had then turned the pup upside down to show her why a female name wouldn’t take. _Then_ it’d been down to Aisling and Carver, the eldest’s word against the youngest. Carver had stomped his foot and declared that the one to say the first name to spring to mind sooner than the other would have the honor of making that name _stick._ They’d said the same thing—mere seconds apart, of course, but it’d been funny regardless.

“Dane?” Malcolm had asked and looked at the wriggling thing in his arms. “ _Really_?”

Creativity is apparently something that does not run in the Hawke blood.

The fire seems abruptly too hot for her skin, so she turns away and follows Dane as he patters out of the room, feeling uneasy, shoulders heavy with something she can’t identify. Bodahn and his boy have retired for the evening, so it’s only Orana that is there to see her come downstairs. She barely makes a sound, her feet slippered as they are, and she approaches the desk she keeps all her letters on without really knowing why. She doesn’t feel like sorting through them, but she puts her hand down to them and shuffles them around anyway. She recognizes the seal of the Circle, that of the Order—they seem to be the ones vying for her attention most lately.

She should sympathize with the stories of those around her, but there are too many. There’s a limit on how much she can care for at once. Perhaps that makes her a terrible person. She’s been called worse, these last few years in Kirkwall. Scoundrel. Upstart. Fereldan bitch. Dog-lord. Troublemaker. Barbarian. _Murderer._

Aisling lifts a hand rubs at her face with it. It’s late, and her thoughts are turning toward the gloomy.

“Is there anything I can get you, Mistress?” Orana’s soft voice asks, and she turns to look at the elf. Orana stands an entire head shorter than her, and is built delicately—she reminds Aisling of the elegant, Orlesian-made fluted glasses Mother keeps—kept—in the kitchen cupboard. She is continually amazed by the girl’s kindness and thoughtful manner. There are shadows of horrible things in Orana’s eyes, but she doesn’t let it hinder her. Aisling wishes she could be more like that.

“No, thank you, Orana,” she says. She picks up a letter that stands out to her, one with the insignia of the Dwarven Merchants’ Guild on its back. The wax may as well have been poured two minutes ago. Intriguing. Why would they send her a letter? Her business with Bartrand ended long ago. Her fingers work the seal, prise it open.

“Can’t sleep?”

She’s glad Orana’s become less formal and more friendly with her—Hawke’s never been good at comforting people, and she’s had no way to tell Orana as much. Fortunately, Orana seems to pick up on the nuances of any given situation fairly quick, and it saves Aisling a lot of stuttering and stumbling about.

“Isn’t that always the problem?” she murmurs as she skims the first lines of the letter. _Most esteemed Messere Hawke—_ they’re laying it on thick, aren’t they?

“I could make you some chamomile tea,” Orana offers. Maker bless her.

“That would be lovely,” Aisling says and pulls up a chair. Orana leaves for the kitchen as she sits, crossing her legs and unfolding the letter fully. “Now… let’s see what they want.”

 

 

…

 

 

_Malcolm is the first of all of them to know what’s coming._

_He lies in his bed, prone, hands crossed carefully over his chest, breathing deeply enough for it to be a worry. Leandra is beside him, fingers laced together, eyes rimmed with red, sleepless, her cheeks streaked with the trails of dried tears. It is early morning, and the larks that have nested at the top of the Chantry are singing, but it doesn’t feel like spring anymore. The twins are still asleep, mercifully unaware of everything, and how much Father’s condition has worsened. Dane is with them._

_Aisling will remember this with the strange, frightening clarity her memory possesses—the track of the sunlight on the wooden floor, the frayed threads of the quilt lying over her father’s broken legs, the heady, sweet smell of the arrowroot water Leandra soaked his compresses in._

_He’d moved a Chantry lay-sister out of the path of a trader’s wagon, only yesterday afternoon. The stones wedged underneath its wheels had come loose, for whatever reason stones beneath wagon wheels come loose, and it’d started to roll away. Aisling will lie awake many years from now, deep into the night, repeating the sound the wagon had made when it hit her father over and over again in her head, then hearing it in other things—the break of a branch, the crack of a bone, the weighted, near-mute thud when a sack of potatoes is dropped to the floor._

_He could have stopped it. If he’d just used magic, he could have_ stopped it. _Aisling’s seen him move entire tree trunks with nothing but a concentrated frown to show for it, has watched him rip stone foundations free from deep ground to hurl at enemies._

_He could have stopped it. Why didn’t he stop it?_

_The lay-sister had visited after it’d happened, and this morning again. She hadn’t been crying either time. That’d been Mother’s job. Aisling wondered why she was noticing that the lay-sister was pretty when her father lay dying but a stone’s throw away. The lay-sister sounded Orlesian, but looked Fereldan—red hair is not a feature you find in Val Royeaux. There is another red-haired woman in Lothering, a tall, intimidating lady with shoulders that could break down a door, and the lay-sister had been her complete opposite: gentle of aspect, with a patient, measured voice, and elegant hands. She’d said her thanks, and asked Leandra if they wished the Revered Mother to deliver final rites._

_Aisling knows, somehow, that Malcolm will no longer be with them by the time the Revered Mother finishes preparing._

“ _Leandra,” Malcolm says suddenly, and his wife leans forward._

“ _Yes, love. I’m listening.”_

“ _When they take me, have them keep the blanket on,” he rasps. His hand stretches out, fingers curling, and find one of Leandra’s cheeks. She holds it to her face. “Don’t let the children see. It’ll… frighten them.”_

“ _Don’t speak that way,” Leandra says. Her voice is already thickening with the anticipation of weeping again. “Please…”_

“ _I’m sorry,” he says in return, very quiet. So quiet. He looks pale. His lips are ashen. Even the dark beard he keeps cut close to his jaw cannot mask the pallor. His eyes, the ones his eldest inherited, are still open, but the light in them is dulling._

“ _It’s not your fault,” Leandra manages. Her mouth is trembling with the effort of remaining composed. “It’s not your fault…”_

“ _Aisling,” Malcolm calls, and his daughter stands to attention. She comes to the side of the bed with silent steps, curls her toes into the wood when she looks at her father and her eyes trace over his so-familiar face. Over the scar on his lip, the freckles over the bridge of his distinctive nose—another thing he gave her—the fall and curve of his dark hair splayed against the starched-white of his pillow. There are bits of silver scattered along his hairline now, at his temples, but it doesn’t make him look old. Just well-traveled. Distinguished, Mother had said once._

_He reaches for her with his other hand. She takes it. He’s cold. There are bruises all over his knuckles—they’re not even as dark as they used to be. She knows it’s not a good sign._

“ _Brave Aisling,” Malcolm says. It’s almost a whisper. “I wish I had something profound to tell you. Something wise… something that would help.”_

“ _You don’t have to say anything,” Aisling replies. She hates the way her voice wavers. She’s supposed to be strong, the person Bethany and Carver can rely on. She wants to be as good as father. Now she_ has _to be._

“ _I do,” Malcolm disagrees, and his fingers tighten around hers, colder still. “I want you to know that I love you. You, and your mother, and your brother and sister. I love you all, so much. I’m so lucky to have seen you grow.”_

_A harsh stinging prickles at her eyes. The first hot tear slides down her cheek._

“ _You can’t go,” she says. More tears. She can feel the blood rushing to her face. “You_ can’t _. Stay. Papa, please stay.”_

_The calluses on his hands chafe against her palm. “I wish I could, ladybird. I wish I could.”_

_She can’t cry loudly. It’ll wake them. But her shoulders shake, and her hands do too. He hasn’t called her that in years._

“ _Remember what I taught you. Purpose first…”_

“… _compulsion later,” she finishes. She sniffs, cursing herself for being so weak. “I’ll remember. I swear.”_

“ _Good. I love you.”_

“ _I love you too,” Aisling says, but it sounds mangled and distorted. She’s eighteen. She’s supposed to be beyond sniveling like a child, but she can’t stop it. The more she tries, the messier it becomes. Her nose is running, and her head has fogged. What can she do? Nothing. She wishes it’d been her. This family needs him, more than anything. She wishes they’d never settled down in Lothering, that they’d kept going like they’d planned. He’d promised to show her Nevarra—all of Thedas. To take her to the places where he’d been before he met Mother. What of all those promises now?_

_Malcolm blinks, slowly, and his hand slackens in his wife’s grip, long fingers drooping. “I’m going to shut my eyes for… just a bit. So tired.”_

_Leandra’s expression pinches, but she tries to smile. “Don’t worry. We’ll be here.”_

_He nods once. He looks at Aisling and smiles as well, though she can’t bring herself to return it. She can’t pretend. Not about this. She brushes the hair from her father’s brow, gently, with care that breaks Leandra’s heart. Malcolm’s breathing is softer now, nearly inaudible. His eyes slide closed._

“ _Rest well,” Aisling says, her vision blurring._

_Malcolm turns his face into her hand. He lets out a deep sigh, like a man letting himself sit after a long bout of standing, and at last lies still. Something makes a strangled, whimpering noise, and then she realizes it came from her. She sinks to the bedside and drops all pretense of composure._

_She already misses him._

 

 

…

 

 

The wind of the Wounded Coast almost tears her hair from its tie.

She wears it like her mother did, Fenris has noticed. She still looks as tall and proud as when he first met her, and outlined in the pale light of the Coast she seems more illuminated illustration than woman. To most she must appear unruffled, even collected, but Fenris has known her long enough to be able to tell that the severe line of her shoulders means she is _furious_. Her right hand fists at her side, clawed gauntlet clinking, and her jaw clenches as she looks at Grace. They should have killed her, all those years ago. He says as much.

“I thought you above this, Thrask,” Aisling bites out. Her voice is strained with the effort of staying calm.

The templar in question doesn’t seem much affected by her accusation. He looks like he’s aged a hundred years—the skin of his countenance is wan and discolored. Even the ends of his brilliantly red beard are wispy and unkempt. If this is the face of the mage revolution, Fenris feels they’ll have no trouble with any so-called _rebellion_.

“I suppose it was too much to hope that you wouldn’t have come here,” Thrask says. He sounds exhausted. “Though I cannot understand why you support Meredith still. It was not the Circle that kept Feynriel safe from demons—it was you.”

“I know very well who it was that kept him _safe_ ,” she hisses. The anger is bleeding through. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t cut you down where you stand.”

“Please, Champion. I have nothing but respect for you. It’s Meredith we must see gone.”

Fenris has no doubt Aisling would have considered the man’s proposal… had Carver not been lying five yards away, unconscious, in full mail, with runes of blood magic circling him. She is not logical when comes down to matters of family—she would clear Deep Roads twice over for her brother, and everyone knows it. This templar is either foolish beyond measure or willing to court a violent death openly. Perhaps a generous dose of both. Aisling takes a step forward, unafraid, and there is no mercy in her eyes.

“I will not negotiate until Carver is standing beside me,” she says, impatience making her speech sibilant.

Thrask shakes his hands at her like a child. “I will not harm your brother. We will release him the moment I have your _word_ that you will support us.”

A depression suddenly forms in the sand around Aisling’s feet. Handfuls of it are sent flying as her mana spirals outward. Varric has to cover his eyes with a sleeve of his duster.

“You seem to be working under the assumption that you are at an advantage here,” Aisling tells him. She doesn’t even reach for the staff on her back. “All your cooperation will guarantee is your continued survival. I will not throw my lot in with _cowards_ who take hostages to ensure my aid.”

Thrask gulps, but it is Grace who answers. She is just as haggard as Thrask, if not more so.

“The boy dies,” she declares, and she stares at Hawke. “Then the Champion.”

The templar rounds on her. “Stand down, Grace.” His blue eyes stand out of his face the way chips of something lost and broken stand out in the translucent sweep of winter ice. “We will not kill an innocent to achieve our ends. It gains us nothing to become Meredith.”

“But you took him anyhow,” Aisling reminds him. Her patience is fraying, and apparently, so is Grace’s.

“Meredith? What do I care for _Meredith_? I’m here for the Champion.”

Aisling moves closer still. “Don’t trifle with me, snake. You hurt my brother, you die.”

“I would rather die a hundred times than endure one more hour in the Circle!” Grace yells, now turning to face Hawke. The pattern of her tattoo is stark against the color of her skin, and the end of it stretches while she talks. “I have been counting the days to get my revenge. Alain, kill the hostage!”

That makes them all go for their weapons. Alain offers some weak excuse that is lost in the tension, and when Thrask lurches toward Grace to detain her, a spell picks him up, in the manner of a child picking up a toy that frustrates them, and slams him into the ground with force enough to break bone. They all hear the sharp snap of his neck coming apart. What an embarrassingly artless death.

Aisling is the first to react. She draws her staff with the speed of a striking viper, and in one fluid movement has leaned out and slammed Grace in the abdomen with the length of it. The apostate reels back, bent at the waist, clutching at her middle as she wheezes. Behind her the remaining templars and mages make themselves ready for battle. Fenris already has Lethendralis prepared.

Hawke laughs, and the sound is cutting. “I only hope you’re more fun than your Decimus.”

That has the desired effect: Grace screams in rage and rushes her, completely forgetting about directing any hostile intent at Carver. Aisling sidesteps her attacker with ease and crunches her gauntlet into Grace’s face in a punch that would have made Isabela proud. Grace shrieks, pained, and blood begins to stream from her nose freely. It drips to the sand below, beading there in scarlet dots that look like rubies. But her temper is not sated, only beaten. She begins casting—an aura of red magic gathers around her, the color very telling of which school the spell belongs to. Hawke doesn’t let her finish. She bats Grace’s staff away with her own and cracks it over the other mage’s hands.

Aveline is charging a group of templar rogues with shield down while Varric unslings Bianca from his back. Some of the apostates have started running off, taking to the slopes and abandoning their supposedly noble cause with troubling simplicity. Fenris breathes deep, feeling the lyrium flare to life on his skin, and joins the fray, Lethendralis held high. Its blade bites through armor and mail as a heated knife cuts through butter. Templar and mage alike fall before him because he is good at this, good at taking life away. He knows what he has to do on the battlefield. Soon he is shoulder-to-shoulder with Aveline, cutting swaths through thinning enemy ranks.

Beside him, Hawke is making her final move. She drops her staff, draws her dagger, and reaches over to wrest Grace toward her by the hair. Soil scatters during the tussle. The latter trips and falls to her knees, wailing curses, the air about her churning with magic. Sparks are flying, blue and white and yellow, catching fire from nothing—a mage’s anger manifested and perfectly aimless. The last futile throes of a creature about to be exterminated. Hawke’s hand is tangled far into Grace’s low ponytail of mousy, straggled brown, its grip unforgiving and strong.

“I keep my promises,” Aisling says, wild-eyed, and draws the dagger neatly across the murderer’s throat.

 

 

…

 

 

“ _Higher, Papa, higher!”_

_Malcolm does as he’s told and swings his daughter upward. She's gotten heavier. Growing. They do that fast, don't they?_

“ _Don't fall,” he grunts as she scrambles to his shoulders and anchors herself there, with her little grasping bare feet and hands._

“ _I won't!” Aisling assures him, and presses one cheek to the top of his head. “When's the baby coming? I want a sister, Papa. Or a brother. Do you know when?”_

_He laughs. “Any day now. Patience is a virtue, ladybird. You'll help Mother just like we discussed when it's time, won't you?”_

_She nods very seriously. “I'll be the_ best _big sister ever! I practiced my fire spells and I'll be super extra good at them when baby Hawke is here and they won't have to worry about_ anything _. Do you want to see?"_

_"Maybe not while you're so near my hair, my dear."_

_Aisling sighs. "It would grow back, Papa."_

_"You're far too shrewd for a girl of six," he says, reaching up and over to bop her on the nose with a finger as he makes his way across the garden and back to the house. He knows he hits his mark because she sniffs unhappily._

_"What's 'shrood,' mean?"_

_"It_ means _you're a princess."_

_He can practically hear her frowning. "I think you're lying."_

_A second laugh, this time more startled than anything else. "You're going to knock someone unconscious with that tongue one day."_

_She thuds her heels into his chest, gently. "Papa," she whines. "Stop saying things that I don't understand."_

_"It's about time for lunch," Malcolm reminds her, opening the door to the house. "Watch your head."_

_"Mama," Aisling calls as soon as they step inside._

_Leandra's standing at the table by the hearth, crushing garlic cloves with the back of a knife, her greying hair gathered in a loose tail that trails down between her shoulder-blades. Cooking hasn't ever been much of her strength, what with being a nobleman's daughter and all, but she'd been determined to learn. For Aisling—for the_ children _, it'll be, now. "Yes, my dear?"_

 _"Papa won't tell me what the word 'shrood' means. Is it a_ bad _word?"_

_She observes Aisling for a moment before she turns her eyes on her husband. “Malcolm...”_

“ _Is it? Is it bad? Was I right?”_

“ _No, it isn't,” Leandra says firmly, setting the kitchen-knife aside. “Your father is just being himself.”_

“ _That sounds rather accusatory,” Malcolm remarks. Leandra wipes her hands down on the apron tied around her waist, and Malcolm only realizes what's happening when Aisling all but drops from his shoulder and into her mother's arms like a rock. “Are you sure that's wise, in your condition...?”_

“ _I'm pregnant, Malcolm,” she tells him as she hefts Aisling up on one hip. “Not an invalid. I'm sure we'll be fine.”_

_He looks at them, the both of them, his entire world wrapped up in two people, while Leandra straightens Aisling's shirt with a caring hand and wipes the dirt from Aisling's cheek with the handkerchief she digs out of her apron. Aisling has more of his likeness than Leandra's—something he never thought he'd say—but there she is, with the same prominent nose and the pale Hawke eyes, the imposing brow that looks silly on a child but will be dignified on an adult woman; she even has the faint sprinkle of freckles that he sees on his own face when he gazes into the mirror._

_"What is it?" Leandra asks, and he comes to understand he's been staring._

_"Nothing," he says as he shakes his head. "It's—no, nothing. You're both beautiful."_

_Leandra smiles, bashful, her cheeks dimpling. He didn't think she could be happy here, when they left Kirkwall, but maybe he was wrong. Maker, he hopes he was._

_"Papa, look at what I can do!"_

_He turns his attention to his daughter again, to see that she's rolled her eyes in the back of her head so that the whites are showing. Leandra cries out in disgust._

_"Eugh! Aisling, stop at once!"_

_Malcolm snorts, and it earns him a fearsome glare. "This is our progeny. Aren't you proud?"_

_"Thankfully there will be more to take our chances on_ soon _. Aisling, you will_ ruin your eyes _!"_

_Aisling doesn't seem to have heard. "I'm hungry. Is the food ready yet, Mama?"_

_"It won't be if you keep doing that."_

_"But—"_

_"I won't have any of it! Now go, wash up. You can't eat with dirty fingers."_

_"...Fine."_

_Malcolm watches Aisling trudge off to the washroom after Leandra puts her down._

_"Why are you smiling?" Leandra says with a sigh._

_"No particular reason," he replies. "You're a good mother."_

_She rolls her eyes and faces her cutting board on the table again. "Pass me the rosemary."_

_"As the lady commands."_

 

 

…

 

 

In hindsight, he should have probably predicted that the whole _living in a cottage in the middle of the Orlesian countryside_ situation couldn't have lasted long _—_ but he couldn't have predicted _how_ that end would come about. Or why, for that matter. Fenris is used to being on the run. Now, he's used to being on the run _with her_. And he's not sure he'll be able to go back to doing anything else. But he won't get any answers by sitting here with his eyes shut, pretending he can't hear her reaching for her boots.

She has her back turned to him and is wiggling into her chest-bindings when he looks next. In the dim light of the early morning he can see the spots and moles that pepper her back as clearly as he could last night—there are scars trailing down the line of her spine, small things he's kissed his way down many a time. He doesn't like the idea of that being impossible for him to do. The buckles of her boots clink and click as she tightens the fastenings, fusses over them to make sure they're just right—she always does that.

He rolls over to her side of the bed, sheets bunching after him. "Where are you going?"

Aisling stops moving. She gathers her hair, sweeping it to he left. It's the longest it's ever been, almost brushing her elbows.

"I have... something to do," she whispers, like she's scared of who might listen in if her if she raises her voice.

"...Alone?"

Her shoulders tense. "I'm sorry."

Fenris sits up. "You haven't told me for what."

"You wouldn't like it," Aisling says.

"Do I ever?"

"This less than usual."

He rubs at his face with the back of a wrist. "I would go with you, wherever you should lead. You only have to ask."

She swivels around to look at him, her expression strained. "I know. I can't do that to you. And I can't... I can't endanger you."

Though it's been nigh on ten years, her touch still sends a trill of warmth through him. She swipes a thumb over the arc of his cheek. Her skin is cool, soft. He will miss her.

"Danger wouldn't be new," Fenris says, and for some reason, that makes her laugh. He doesn't think he's very funny, but if it'll cause her mirth—he'll take it.

"I know that too," she murmurs.

"You won't consider it?"

"You have to keep an eye on Carver," Aisling insists. "Aveline's not enough. He'll get himself into trouble eventually. You have your differences, but..."

He leans his forehead against hers. "Hush. I'll make sure of it."

"I'm sorry."

Now he laughs a little, though it's raspy from sleep. "You've apologized twice in the space of two minutes more than you have in the last seven years. Stop. It's unsettling."

She lets out a short exhalation. "I'll be back."

He smiles, just a crook of the mouth, easy. "You always are."

Aisling holds his gaze for a second longer before kissing him, so close and so warm, like it's the last time she's going to be doing this. It can't be. He returns the pressure, fingers curling in her hair, affectionate in the way he's learned to be through the time he's had with her. The lyrium in him hums in response to her, to the mana it can feel pressing up in the space between her will and his. He chases after her when she breaks away, pressing his lips to hers again and again.

"I love you," she says through the hitch in her breath.

A second smile. He has the perfect answer. "I know."

 


End file.
